For anyone who doesn't know what Faustus is talkin
Post# of 43064
PTOI, per their permit, is only allowed to use HDPE, LDPE and PP plastics. There's a quasi-efficient market for those scrap plastics already so if any company wants those plastics, they will have pay for them...or pay a similar amount in labor to sort those plastics out of the waste stream. Currently those plastics cost about $0.30/lb. Similarly, if some company happens to generate scrap plastic, they can simply sell that plastic at about the same $0.30/lb.
Also currently the diesel spot price is $1.94/gallon and a gallon of diesel weighs seven lbs. So even if PTOI could turn those plastics, at *100% efficiency*, into pure in-spec fleepin' diesel even with *no* operating costs incurred, the seven lbs of plastic needed alone to make one gallon of diesel would cost $2.10. And $2.10 in feedstock costs alone to make King Midas' $1.94 worth of diesel is not a way to make money. It's better and more environmentally friendly to keep sending that scrap plastic to recyclers than to pyrolyze/thermally depolymerize that plastic into any type of "fuel." Even in an unrealistically optimistic case, depolymerizing plastic into a liquid is a money-losing proposition. PTOI's process is a well understood, but worthless process.
Years ago, PTOI tried to say they would get "waste" plastic for free but ultimately PTOI started paying for plastic. While the company didn't state what they were paying for plastic, that rate would have been the going market rate for plastic. If PTOI were buying today, the cost of the plastic feedstock would be around $0.30/lb.
It really is simple math. After six years, PTOI has been unable to beat the math...so now PTOI is telling investors that the hunt is on for customers where the math might work. Guess what problem PTOI will run into with each and every customer??